


After the Dark

by FrozenSeas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 12:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18366038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenSeas/pseuds/FrozenSeas
Summary: A child is born in Rosanna some time after the war between the Dynasty and the Empire. A child who was consecuted and whose soul did not belong to the Krynn Dynasty.(Spoilers for Critical Role Campaign 2 episode 57)





	After the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I had a thought after what was revealed about the beacon last episode...

A few years after the war a young male drow named Valdor Danaste sits on the floor of his room. His mother finds him, with his right arm covered in paint. Blobs of blue and green cover his arm in a strange pattern that even stretches up to part of his face.  
“Valdor…” She says in a scolding tone, “The paint goes on the paper, not on your arms. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”

Valdor only giggles and follows his mother along to the bath. Mildly disappointed as his artwork is washed away.

 

Sometime after that, his mother and father take him for a walk through the streets of Rossana. A tiefling stands off the side of the street juggling and doing tricks as the occasional passerby drops a copper piece into a hat in front of him. Valdor grins and pulls his parents over for the show.

After a few minutes of Valdor being entranced by the show, the tiefling pauses his juggling act and asks him if he’d like to try. Valdor nods excitedly and the tiefling shows him the movement he needs to do before handing the balls over.

His parents smile fondly at him as he makes a face to concentrate and begins to try to juggle. Only after a minor stumble at the very start, Valdor quickly picks it up juggling with ease and a grin on his face.

The red-skinned tiefling claps for his performance with a wide smile, “Well done kiddo! It’s like you’ve done this before!”

Behind him, Valdor’s parents share a questioning look.

 

Events like this only became more and more common as he grew, more often than not with sketches of peacocks or Valdor expertly embroidering with his mother. On occasion, Valdor would even join in on other street-side performers easily fitting in with their routine. Once Valdor even came home with a pocket full of copper because he had found a deck of tarot cards and began telling fortunes on the side of the street.

His parents would ask him how he knew how to do these things, a few times even mentioning being consecuted to him and only receiving puzzled looks meaning he had never heard the term. Which meant he hadn’t been consecuted right?

 

His parents wrote off these events for a time, assuming their child was simply a prodigy.

Until one night when their son was ten years old and he woke up screaming and grabbing at his chest. His parents asked him what the matter was and he told them he had a vivid dream. A dream where he died. But it wasn’t him, he was older and his skin was purple and scarred and there were people. People he didn’t recognize calling out a name, a name that felt familiar but wasn’t.

He had tried to defend himself, reaching out his hand with a muttered word and a blood vessel popping on his neck causing enough damage to send him onto the ground. Where the terrifying man drove his glaive straight through his chest.

 

His parents took him directly to the court of the Bright Queen. There they began to help him remember things. Things from the person who both was and was not him. Occasional things would slip through as well, things from a man Valdor did not like one bit. That man was not him at all.

Eventually, he remembered some names which he told to the people who were helping him.

Caleb, Yasha, Nott, Beauregard (the woman who had called out to him), Jester, and Fjord.

He also remembered the name of this group with a little prompting. The Mighty Nein, they had called themselves. A silly name that confused everyone who wasn’t in the group into thinking there were nine of them.

The people hearing this recognized the name as well, bringing Valdor back to the Bright Queen to say this information again. Her eyes had widened and she whispered something to one of the people near her. A few minutes later the drow returned and Valdor was ushered to a different area he hadn’t been before. There were strange sigils imprinted into the ground which he thought were very pretty.

Not long after that, there was a flash of arcane energy in the room of someone using a spell to teleport rather than coming from one of the connected permanent transports.

Valdor recognized him from his memories, though he was much cleaner now and didn’t smell quite as much. The man called out to him.

“Mr. Mollymauk? Is it really you?”

Molly grinned at Caleb as the memories started flooding back, “Caleb dear! You cleaned up nicely. It’s about time.”

**Author's Note:**

> After episode 57 and all the things revealed about the beacon and what it does this idea popped into my head. I mean, Molly (spoilers) died near the beacon after all, though it was in the haversack at the time. And Cree said Molly was in a dark place after they checked up on him after he died... so...  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this lil one-shot!


End file.
